


i do, i do, i do

by MaryPSue



Category: Mamma Mia! (Stageplay)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: Five times Tanya went to the altar, and one time Donna did.
Relationships: Tanya Chesham-Leigh/Donna Sheridan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	i do, i do, i do

**Author's Note:**

> if the wranglers stick this under the movie tag: this is based on/inspired by the play and the lines referenced are from the play (and I don't remember if they were in the movie).

_“God, Tanya, eight friggin’ years?”_

…

(Millionaire #1)

So she’s young. That doesn’t mean she’s _entirely_ stupid.

Donna’d run off to Greece on a whim, and Tanya and Rosie had followed, like the good friends they are. And sure, they’d always sort of known that something might someday split up the band – but they’d never expected it to be Donna getting _pregnant_.

Tanya’d met him at a party she definitely hadn’t crashed on a private beach she was definitely allowed to be on, on the Corfu coast where she definitely had not been sulking. They’d just had a bit of fun together. Then he’d proposed, and she’d taken one look at the rock and thought, _Sure, why not_.

The dress is custom-made, the best Daddy’s money can buy. The family’s just so relieved that she’s finally getting hitched that they spare no expense, just in case she’ll change her mind and call it off if she doesn’t get her way. She catches a couple of aunts whispering in the kitchen about how hopefully she’ll settle down, now that she has a man in her life. No more of this sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll nonsense.

If they only knew.

…

(Millionaire #2)

She never saw the first divorce coming. She’s still reeling when she walks out of the courtroom and collides with him, fresh from his own divorce. It feels a little like fate, and Tanya looks up into his eyes and thinks, _Sure, why not_.

That honeymoon glow doesn’t last long before she realizes he’s a deeply boring and slightly unpleasant person. They start sleeping in separate bedrooms about a month in. She only stays the night when she wants something. He complains that she only stays the night when she wants something. He complains about a lot of things.

She misses singing. She misses Rosie. She misses Donna.

…

(Millionaire #3)

By now, she’s learned not to expect much.

Six months in, her millionaire of the moment catches her with the pool boy and makes her a deal – no more drinking and screwing around, and she can buy whatever she wants. Whenever she wants. For however _much_ she wants. The whole idea of having an allowance as a grown woman wasn’t working for Tanya, so she thinks, _Sure, why not_.

Six months later, he catches her with her golf tutor. She takes his house in the divorce, and sells it to buy shoes. The Louboutins hurt like hell, but she looks _fantastic_ in them. Rosie would hate them.

Donna would laugh her ass off, if she heard. Tanya should really call.

…

(Millionaire #4)

She gets her first facelift just before she meets him, and her second not long after. “It’s not _bad_ ,” he’d said, in that special horrified tone that people use to talk about terrible Christmas gifts and ugly babies, “but my surgeon is the _best_.”

Plastic surgeries are expensive, and millionaires are getting harder to hook, and Rosie’s on some commune somewhere raising sheep and her father has cut her off and Donna’s too busy with her hotel and her daughter to get in touch and Tanya thinks, _Sure, why not_.

Over the next few years, he buys her new boobs, a new butt, a new nose. Gets the fat vacuumed out of her thighs and tummy and upper arms. Buys her gym memberships and nutritionists. And then leaves her for a younger, blonder version of herself. Apparently there are some things you can’t refurbish, that you absolutely have to buy new.

By now, at least, she’s smart enough to have a prenup of her own in place. Even after he no longer gets to touch it, he’s still buying her a beautiful new body.

Tanya wonders, once, whether Rosie and Donna would even still recognize her if they saw her in the street.

But it’s only a passing thought.

…

(Millionaire #5)

The less said, the better.

She swears off millionaires, after him. For a while, anyway. Men are exhausting, and rich ones even more so. Time to focus on Tanya for a while.

She wonders, a few times, whether Rosie and Donna might like to get together. But Donna’s so busy, with her hotel and her daughter and her perfect island paradise, so happily single and so proud of it. And Rosie of course has her job at the Whole Woman Press, which at least smells less like sheep than the last place.

They’re busy people. They’ve got their own lives.

Then the invitation to Sophie’s wedding shows up, and Tanya takes one look and thinks, _Yes_.

She packs her bag and books her flights that very same night, like a kid looking forward to Disneyland. Even though the wedding’s still months away, she can barely sleep that night for excitement.

…

(?)

Every time Tanya’s gone to the altar with “I do” on her lips, she’s had _Sure, why not_ in her head. But when she looks into Donna’s face, radiant and so strangely vulnerable for once with her eyes locked onto Sam’s, her stomach drops.

Some people, Tanya realizes, say “I do” and mean it.

That night, after Sophie and Sky have taken their boat out to the mainland, she calls the travel agency and has her return flight pushed up to the next morning.

It might be another eight years – or longer – before she can look Donna in the face again.

…

_“I know, honey, I’m sorry. It’s just been one jet-setting millionaire after another.”_


End file.
